Just a Word
by The Raven and the Fox
Summary: Sometimes he's rough. SasuNaru.


**Title**: Just a Word

**Summary**: Sometimes he's rough. SasuNaru.

**Words**: 1669

**Warnings**: abuse, probably dubcon, borderline explicit sex, somewhat graphic violence or description thereof, lots of injuries and generally negative feelings. A lot of suffering. Definitely not a happy ending. I don't know how to do warnings.

I was supposed to write slightly self-troubled "Sasuke loves Naruto but won't admit it" fic and then it turned abusive. Holy hells did it turn abusive. This is not a happy fic. You have been warned.

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Sometimes he's rough.

Sometimes he hurts Naruto. Sometimes they spar and he shouts and he denies it, he abuses Naruto: verbally – _I don't consider you friend; you're not worth my time; I don't give a fuck how you feel; I didn't ask for you to drag me back to this shithole_ – and physically – a blade against skin, knuckles on cheekbones, elbows to ribs and kicks to stomachs. Some days he really wants to just cut Naruto's arms off. Some days he wants to see those pretty blue eyes cry blood. Sometimes he ties Naruto's wrists with ropes that chafe; he bites bruises into the insides of his thighs and pulls his hair out and doesn't prepare Naruto because he wants it to hurt, wants it to burn, wants Naruto at his mercy, at his feet, licking his mud-stained shoes.

And sometimes he's as gentle as the breeze, caresses and kisses and whispered words: _I'm sorry; forgive me; trust me; I won't hurt you; I promise you'll enjoy it; I promise I'll never let anyone harm you._ He apologizes and he pampers Naruto and he makes up for all the horrible things he's done and he repents, he tries so hard to repent but he knows it'll never be enough, knows he'll never rub out the guilt in his mind, the blood on his hands, caked between the ridges of his fingertips and under the grooves of his nails.

But it doesn't matter what he does to hurt Naruto. It makes no difference how much he maims him, how much he tortures him, how Naruto's friends worry and wonder as he forces a smile through a black eye and a missing tooth and says he's alright. It doesn't matter because Naruto is utterly, hopelessly chained by his boundless devotion. He said he'd drag Sasuke home, and drag he did – quite literally sometimes, through mud and water and thick delirium as Sasuke wove in and out of sanity and consciousness – and Sasuke fought and begged and yelled and protested and threatened, but no method of escape or manner of pleading would budge Naruto or the Hokage. He was essentially under house arrest in Konoha, permanently weakened by warfare, eyesight too poor to defend himself in an attack, under too close of a watch to even commit suicide. And so, trapped and manic, he turned to the only pair of open arms he could find – and aimed a dagger right at Naruto's unshielded heart.

He missed, of course. Naruto deflected his attack, and they sparred for hours. But he could tell Naruto wasn't really trying. Eventually he won with words – three simple words: _you are mine._

And Naruto dropped everything.

The sex that night was brutal. Sasuke dominated Naruto, pushed him down and tied him up and fucked him. He screamed profanities when Naruto didn't fight back. It was too easy. Too wrong. Naruto doesn't submit; he has never been the type to submit and Sasuke has no reason to see why he would do so now. It even pissed him off that Naruto was fighting back because it meant he was obeying Sasuke's order. There was something infuriatingly ironic about it. But Sasuke forgot about that quickly enough; Naruto continued to fight, and the more he fought the more enthused he seemed about it, and Sasuke found a renewed vigour in winning against someone who actually tries. He loves seeing the fire in Naruto's eyes, the ripple of his muscles and the arch of his back and the way his hair splays in all directions the morning after. He thrills in the tone of Naruto's voice as they grapple, as they spar, as they fuck. And although the first time he woke up to Naruto stroking his hair he jolted out of bed and hurled insults and shuriken, after that he's found it almost unsettlingly soothing, a strange duality of uncomfortable yet relaxing. He lets Naruto carry on with it, even when he's awake. He'll be sitting doing paperwork and Naruto will come over and comb his hair, or massage his shoulders, or just sit behind him and wrap his arms around his middle and hold him, and Sasuke will not say a word.

But he lets his anger get the better of him. So often he is to be found shouting at Naruto, calling him weak, calling him worthless, cursing his name and his existence and his personality all in one breath, hitting at all the weak spots he knows Naruto holds so close and keeps so secret. He wants to see Naruto break and buckle, wants to see him beaten, small, helpless. Naruto has gotten good at putting up with Sasuke's tirades, but now and again he cracks. And when he does – when Sasuke sees the tightening of his lips and the crease in his brow and the sorrow, the heart-wrenching despair in his eyes – Sasuke feels an ache. It's a pain unlike any he's known before, a desperate need. He doesn't understand why his arms want to lift from his sides and towards Naruto; he doesn't understand the overwhelming urge to enfold Naruto within his grasp and hold him tightly. It's a long time before Sasuke starts to understand what this feeling is, and only then because he recognizes it in Naruto like looking at a reflection of it in a mirror.

He eases up on the abuse a little. Not entirely – he's still so resentful, so wounded, with burn scars and infected gashes all over his soul and splinters in his heart and cataracts in his eyes – but he finds himself softened by affection. It enrages him, but there is nothing he can do. He tries as hard as he can but his lashings don't have the same drive behind them; his words change their bite from spitting fire to bitter sandpaper. He hates Naruto for different reasons now. He hates the way Naruto _gets_ to him. And he hates, oh how he loathes the way Naruto won't give him up, can't let him go, refuses to stop giving him every ounce of trust and love he can give. And, since it's Naruto, that amounts to a lot.

Sasuke's anger loses momentum as the weeks pass. Naruto's wounds become less severe and less frequent; their lovemaking is quieter, less frenzied, more sensual. Sasuke stops tying Naruto up. He finds he's addicted to the feeling of Naruto's hands on his body. He finds that sometimes it's okay if they don't fight. Sometimes Sasuke is gentle as the breeze. Sometimes he relapses; there's a small inconvenience or large argument and he slams Naruto against the wall and he makes Naruto whimper, makes him cry, and gets off to the tearstains on the pillow. Sometimes he is the one to break down and find himself helpless and shaking with tears pouring down his face and Naruto is the one to console him. Naruto never fights unless fought against; he never belittles Sasuke or overpowers him; he never leaves Sasuke's side. Naruto is gentle always, and some days Sasuke hates it and some days he hates himself.

But every day Naruto is there.

Sasuke looks into the mirror, into those pretty blue eyes, and sees himself reflected there. And he realizes that he is the mirror, the copycat: Naruto is the one who's always held on, always opened up to him, and Sasuke is the one who has acted in kind, months though it may have taken. Naruto has nurtured him like a flowerless rose in a vase, prickly and snarled but growing each day, until finally he has found himself blooming from within, heart bursting with a word, just a word, but a feeling so strong he can hardly bear to hold it inside him. And still sometimes the thorns pierce, but the petals are soft and the scent is sweet, at least for a little while.

He knows he will die.

Snipped from the rose bush, Sasuke is a severed end. He's been through too much. He's not all there; he might have sealed off a portion of his soul to some forbidden technique but he can't really remember now. His body, though strong enough to take beatings and rigorous training, seems to fail spontaneously more and more often. One day he opens his eyes and all he can see is white. His fingertips start to lose feeling. His voice grows weak and raspy; his hearing crackles and there's a constant ringing in the back of his head. Sasuke is fading.

He wouldn't mind if it didn't mean losing Naruto. If it didn't mean knowing, through what limited senses he has left, that Naruto is breaking apart to see him die. He would gladly surrender himself to the devil if it wouldn't make Naruto's world fall to pieces. But he doesn't know what else he can do. Not once does it cross his mind that he will not be around to see Naruto's reaction to his death; it doesn't even occur to him that his own suffering is prolonged and doubled – tripled – increased a hundredfold – by Naruto's desperate pleas for a miracle to save him. He cannot bear to leave his love.

It is the end and Sasuke can feel tears on his face. His own. Not his own. They mingle, wet and warm and salty – at least his sense of taste has been left more or less intact – and he feels Naruto's lips touch his forehead, his nose, his cheeks, his ears, his lips. Again and again. And Naruto is crying; Sasuke can feel him shuddering and shaking but he can't hear a thing and he is breaking, crumbling, dying. But there is one last thing he has to do.

_Naruto_. The name is heavy on his tongue, on his heart. Naruto freezes against him.

He tries again: _Naruto_.

He feels hands against his face, wiping tears away, more tears splashing down. Naruto holds him closer.

And Sasuke says all the things he has always meant to say.

* * *

This is more of a wandering-thoughts-path than a coherent narrative, and as usual the style and focus and mood all warped as I was writing this, but I really enjoyed writing it. I did it all in pretty much one pass without much editing to bind it together; I prefer the looser way it's come out.

R+F


End file.
